THE USSA PROJECT: TEN YEARS ‘UNDER THE SKIES’ AND ‘ON THE GROUND’ OF SOUTH ASIA

Abstract

The paper marks the tenth anniversary of the interdisciplinary project ‘Under the Skies of South Asia’ implemented by the Centre for Indian Studies of the Institute of Oriental Studies RAS and headed by Dr. Irina Glushkova. At present, following the pilot volume Death in Maharashtra. Imagination, Perception and Expression, four more volumes have been published, each based upon new methodological ‘turns’ in the humanities: Visual, discussing social perceptions of artefacts; mobile, focusing on various activities performed by individuals and societies in motion; spatial, centered around territories and various human activities to appropriate, acculturate, protect it and legitimize various kinds of interconnections with it, from political to emotional; communicative, exploring historically and ethno-culturally specific means of communication and expression of positive and negative perception of the surrounding world. The fifth volume, at present with the publisher, will discuss emotional / affective turn, which attaches socio-cultural significance to human emotions, previously viewed as physiological reactions common to all people. Two more volumes are planned to deal with the problems of household servants and material turn in the humanities. The project motto ‘Not in General, But in Particular’ symbolizes the contributors’ exclusive attention to the real living conditions of the peoples of the region under study, contrary to the Orientalistic heritage of generalization which viewed India and other countries of South Asia ‘in general’, ignoring regional, ethno-cultural and social specificities of the peoples inhabiting the subcontinent.